


nude tidings we bring

by brandywine



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22048810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine/pseuds/brandywine
Summary: Lance loves his weird, nude husband.
Relationships: Lance Bass/Chris Kirkpatrick
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	nude tidings we bring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pensnest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensnest/gifts).



> For Pensnest, whose prompt was: _Domesticity, Trickyfish-style. Whatever that means._
> 
> Full disclosure: This was absolutely inspired by that one episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte's husband refuses to wear clothes around the house and as such, is irrefutable proof that television raised me, and it did a bad job.
> 
> Enjoy!

Lance gets home from work to find Chris vacuuming. Naked.

He stands in the doorway for a few seconds, arms crossed, just watching. The view may be strange, but it sure isn’t bad.

Chris is in some kind of ultra-zen housekeeping zone, just failing and failing and failing to notice he’s not alone. Lance shudders to think how he’d fare in a horror movie.

Good thing this isn’t a horror movie. It’s a porno.

A weird one.

“See, now I have to wonder,” Lance says, raising his voice loud enough to be heard over the hum of the vacuum. Chris whirls around, startled, but Lance just goes on. “Has there ever been a Penthouse letter about this exact scenario? ‘Cos if not, I’m thinking I should write one.”

Chris shakes off the shock pretty quickly. He switches off the vacuum, cackling. “Hey, you’ve got my blessing. But only if you promise to say nice things about my junk.”

“For you?” Lance steps inside and shuts the door, because the last thing he needs is for sweet, old Mrs. Steiblitz in 14B to step outside and catch herself an eyeful of pure, uncut Kirkpatrick. “Baby, I will bust out the poetry.”

“‘Dear, Penthouse: I never thought it could happen to me.’” He makes a sweeping, head to toe gesture with one arm, showcasing the goods like Vanna White. A shorter, hotter, maler Vanna White.

“Well, I mean, frankly, no, I really didn’t think it could happen to me. I bought that Dyson, what, a month ago? And I think this is the first time you’ve ever touched it.”

“Oh, okay, okay, wait a minute here.” Chris looks genuinely offended. “Is it my ass that’s turning you on? Or the idea of a clean apartment?”

“Um…” Lance takes a wide step over the vacuum cord and sets his briefcase down on the kitchen table. “Can’t it be both?”

Chris snorts. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Freak.” Like he’s not standing there naked as the day he was born.

“A freak, huh?” Slow and measured, he unbuttons his coat, he removes his gloves, he unwinds the scarf from around his neck. Then he tosses the entire pile of outerwear at Chris’s head. “I’ll show you how freaky I can be. Bedroom. Ten minutes.”

“Huh? What?” Chris’s voice is muffled by a mouthful of cashmere. “Why do I have to wait ten minutes? I’m good to go right now!”

Lance steps out of his Ferragamos as he walks away. He turns and shoots Chris his best shit-eating grin when he stops to pick them up. “No, you’re not. You’ve got your vacuuming to finish. And don’t forget the corners, please!”

Chris grumbles, but Lance has already left the room.

They’ve only been married six weeks, still very much honeymooning it up, so it’s not surprising that this leads to sex. Everything does.

What _is_ surprising is that Chris really does do an excellent job on those corners.

A few days later, Lance walks in on what looks like an impromptu cookie party. There are baking sheets and snowman and star-shaped cookie cutters all over the counter, flour everywhere, and Chris is using Lance’s marble and olivewood rolling pin from Williams Sonoma to flatten out a lump of dough the size of a basketball.

He also happens to be bare-ass naked. Again.

“Oh, hell, no. There is no way that’s sanitary.”

Chris rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Lance. You let the silliest things trip you up. Is the Mona Lisa sanitary? Is that painting of the water lilies sanitary?”

“Is -- is the…” He watches as Chris tosses the rolling pin to one side and digs his knuckles into the dough. Whatever else you want to say about the man, he’s great with his hands. “Chris, those are famous works of art.”

“And this isn’t?” Chris braces both hands on the imported marble countertop and does a sort of modified, white-boy semi-twerk.

Oh, for Christ’s sake. “I’m just saying, the comparison doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ll tell you what doesn’t make any sense: You, standing there, criticizing this booty. Now are you in the mood for some sugar, or not?”

Well. It’s either sex, or starting in on the flour clean-up, which. No. “‘Some sugar’ as in: the booty? Yeah. Sure. ‘Some sugar’ as in: those germ-infested trash cookies you’re making? Not if you paid me a million dollars.”

Lance ends up blowing Chris right there next to the kitchen island, which probably makes him the world’s worst hypocrite. Then, when the first batch of cookies comes out of the oven, he leans even further into the whole hypocrisy thing, refusing to try even a single one. No matter how many times Chris attempts to pull the ol’ ‘open up, here comes the choo choo’ routine.

A guy’s gotta draw the line somewhere.

Lance has always considered himself a pretty sharp guy. Observant. Detail-oriented. Hawk-eyed, his mama used to say.

So it must be all the sex that’s doing it. Making him slow and dreamy. Dulling his senses. But whatever the reason, it still catches him off guard when he realizes he can’t remember the last time he saw his husband wearing clothes.

Even inside his head, unvoiced and unwitnessed, the thought feels stupid. He’s mistaken. He has to be, right? Except…

He flips through his memory rolodex, just to make sure and yeah, nope, Chris spent all of yesterday just kind of walking around in the nude. So much nudity. So much walking.

The day before yesterday? Even more nudity, somehow. Less walking, though. Mostly sitting.

Chris leaves for work in the morning a good hour or so before Lance does. He’s always careful not to wake Lance, just gently pulls back the blanket and leans in for a quick cheek kiss. Sometimes Lance doesn’t even open his eyes, and that’s a thought that makes Lance’s heart skip a beat.

Oh, God. Should Lance start opening his eyes?

No. That’s ridiculous. If Chris were leaving the house naked, Lance would know. He may have been letting a lot of things slide lately, but he would’ve noticed handcuffs and wailing police sirens. 

And anyway, there’s a big difference between a guy who exposes himself on the 7 train and a guy who just wants to be comfortable in his own home. A huge difference.

Lance vows to be cool about this.

He does not think about bribing the super to mess with the heat, in the hopes that a little chill in the air might make Chris want to layer it up a bit. He doesn’t consider it for a second.

Because that wouldn’t be cool. It’d be sneaky and unhinged and, well. The exact opposite of cool.

And it doesn’t matter that their super is a pretty shady guy, that he's offered to sell Lance ecstasy on more than one occasion and would, in all likelihood, be down for a little bribe-taking. It’s still not gonna happen.

They pick that weekend to put up their Christmas tree and Chris makes Lance’s day by wearing a pair of jeans and his favorite, tattered Black Sabbath tee to the tree lot. Sure, he sheds it all the instant they get home, kicking off his pants two feet from the front door and leaving them there in a crumpled up clothing ball, but Lance doesn’t care ‘cos he’s too busy being cool.

They laugh and shove each other out of the way while tossing handfuls of tinsel at their brand new, eight and a half foot Norway Spruce. Chris imitates Bing Crosby at the top of his lungs and there’s a moment, a moment where he hops up onto a footstool so he can place the angel on top and the twinkling lights hit him just so and it doesn’t even matter that his bare ass is framed perfectly in the center of their huge bay window and is almost certainly visible to the people in the building across the way. Something swells in Lance’s chest and he thinks, _wow. That’s the man I married._

Two days later, Lance is sitting in the breakfast nook, reading, when Chris trudges nakedly past him and into the kitchen. He scratches himself once, twice, then gets to work making a towering, Daqwood-esque sandwich.

When he’s done, he licks the knife before tossing it in the sink. Then he unhinges his jaw and takes a huge bite, spicy mustard dripping down his face and splattering onto his naked chest.

Lance keeps his cool. He keeps it so cool he can feel ice prickling at the back of his neck. _Oh, my God_ he thinks. _That’s the man I married._

They didn’t live together before the wedding. 

Chris told everyone it was because Lance was a good, Christian boy who refused to give his milk away for free. And then Lance would balk at the cow comparison and Chris would moo in his face. Every time.

The real reason wasn’t anywhere near that dramatic. It was a short engagement, only a few weeks, and the lease on Chris’s old place wasn’t up until the end of October. He didn’t want to leave his roommate in a lurch, so flash forward to mid-December, and Lance still has unopened boxes of linens and novelty Batman towels stacked in the foyer.

None of this bothered Lance at the time, But Joey had insisted he was making a mistake -- a big one. “You gotta cohabitate, man,” he’d told Lance over drinks one night. “You gotta. It’s like a trial run. Find out the other person’s secrets. Find out what you’re getting yourself into.”

“But what if we want to preserve the mystery?,” Lance had asked.

Joey just shook his head. “Mystery’s overrated. You worry too much about the mystery, that’s how you end up legally shackled to someone who collects anime body pillows, or who talks to their anime body pillows when they think no one’s around, or who makes a secret shrine in their bedroom closet when one of their body pillows gets ruined in a laundry accident.” 

“...”

“I mean, just for instance,” he’d added, quick. Too quick. Then he’d sighed the sigh of a man who’d seen some serious shit.

Chris has always been loud and proud about his weirdness, though. It’s hard to imagine any extra, secret weirdnesses hidden deep beneath the surface. That’s not his style.

Unless he doesn’t realize it’s weird in the first place? 

That’s a thought.

It can’t be a childhood habit. When you grow up like Chris did, the only boy in a house full of little sisters, you can’t exactly go strutting from room to room with your penis on display.

Lance’s own childhood has in no way prepared him for this. If the Bass family had a motto, it’d be ‘Conceal. That. Shit.’ Emotions? Conceal ‘em. Bodies? You can cover ‘em up, or you can make Baby Jesus cry. Your choice.

Lance was fourteen years old before he realized his mom had wrists and ankles. His dad used to come home from a long, hard day at work and put on _more_ clothing.

He’s completely out of his depth here.

The next day isn’t Lance’s best. He gets told off at work and elbowed in the face on his train ride home, so he’s already a little on edge. 

When he walks through the front door just as Chris is about to sit on the couch, his naked rear end hovering mere inches above Lance’s brand new, four thousand dollar, ivory Belmount sectional, something inside him snaps. He’s pure, primal instinct in that moment. A Type-A bonobo on the mission of his life.

“No!” he yells, rushing forward and it almost feels like he’s running in slow motion. But when he hurls himself at his husband, tackling him to the ground, things speed up. Fast. They both hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Bodies. Hardwood. Thwack.

Chris takes the brunt of the impact and the guttural noise that escapes him makes the blood freeze in Lance’s veins.

He looks up at Lance with glassy eyes. “Hey, honey,” he says, weak-voiced, smile faint. “You’re home.”

Five minutes later, Lance is still a frantic mess. He’s apologized three dozen times, checked Chris for bruises, bumps and head wounds and made a cup of tea Chris insists he doesn’t need.

They settle in at the kitchen island, Chris wrapped in three different afghans he also insists he doesn’t need. 

“Alright, so I think I’m confused,” Chris says. “Pouncing on me the second you get home? That’s a good thing. I mean, in theory. But screaming ‘noooooooo’ while you do it, like you’re Darth Vader and I’m -- some guy getting yelled at by Darth Vader? That’s weird, right?”

Lance opens his mouth, intending to deliver apology number three-dozen-and-one, but something else comes out instead. “I just -- I mean. Your butt. Butt and couch. Couch and butt and the couch and --” Oh, God, he can’t stop. Chris is going to call the insane asylum people and they’re gonna roll him out of here on one of those upright Hannibal Lecter gurneys, still rambling about furniture and butts.

Except -- Chris gets it. Lance sees him getting it, the light dawning in his kind, dark eyes. “Oh. Oh, right, yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair, chagrined. “I guess dragging my naked ass all over your expensive white couch was, um.”

“Yeah,” says Lance. “I mean, it’s not _my_ couch, it’s _our_ couch. But, yeah.”

Chris grins a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Trust me, Lance. It’s your couch.”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t you like it?”

“Of course I do, babe. It’s just like you: beautiful and, uh... really, really white?”

Lance knows when he’s being patronized. “Chris.”

Chris sighs. “It’s nice. Everything about your apartment --”

“ _Our_ apartment.”

“Right. Everything about _our_ apartment is nice. And...clean. And shiny. Like -- like a museum. A museum of Bougie Delights.”

“Chris. That...that may not be the compliment you think it is.”

“It is, though! I mean, well --” He pauses to wince apologetically, then forges ahead. “Okay. Okay. I will admit, it’s a tiny bit nerve-wracking, always being scared I’m gonna stain something, or smash something. And. If I’m being completely honest? I haven’t had coffee in, like, three weeks ‘cos I just have no fucking idea how to operate your fancy Breville whatchamagig.” 

Lance remembers something. “And the Dyson?” he asks in slowly mounting horror.

“Oh. Yeah. That thing. It’s gonna gain sentience and come after me one day. I know it.”

“Jesus, Chris.” All these weeks, Lance has had no idea. None.

“No, it’s okay! Really! You lived here on your own for a long time before I moved in, and I know you like things a certain way and --”

“Oh, my God. I’m the bad guy.” He is. He’s finicky and materialistic and he’s been driving his sweet, nude husband up the wall. 

“Lance, no.” 

“I am.”

“You’re not.” Chris places a warm, calming hand on his knee. Lance just keeps babbling.

“I’m the worst. I’m a terrible husband. I made you feel like you couldn’t even -- wait a second.” He turns, abrupt, on a dime. “If you’ve been so uncomfortable all this time, then why all the --” His voice lowers to a whisper, and he doesn’t know why. “-- nudity?”

“The...nudity?”

“You know. You’re -- ” His mama always told him it was rude to point, but he does it anyway. “Naked. Like, constantly.”

“...oh. That.”

He looks so sheepish, Lance almost feels bad for bringing it up. “I’m just saying. Casual nudity makes a guy come off pretty relaxed.”

Chris sighs again. “Yeah, ‘cos I wanted you to think I _was_ relaxed, genius. I was putting on a show. A damn sexy show, but -- sorry. I guess I overdid it.” He still looks embarrassed, but he’s trying to grin through the discomfort and something about that makes Lance’s heart crack in half.

“Maybe just a little,” Lance agrees, voice small. “Not that I’m complaining!”

Chris gives him a look.

“Okay, as a couch owner, I’m complaining a little. But as an appreciator of fine male butts? Nope. Not at all.” And his smile is real. There’s not a thing wrong with that ass and they both know it. “Just for the record.”

Chris’s own smile is losing its awkward edge, little by little. “Well, thanks for that, at least.”

“Of course.” Lance takes a deep, steadying breath. “And hey, maybe I can learn to loosen up a little bit around here. Maybe we can work on giving things more of a home-y kinda feel, so you’re not, y’know. Quietly freaking out all the time.”

“Really? But I think I’m getting used to living inside a Neiman Marcus showroom.”

“Hey, watch it, bud. I’ve got, like, two of his pieces -- tops. Actually, one might even be a knock-off. I’ve never had it appraised.”

“Sure, sure, whatever.” Chris rolls his eyes. Then his face brightens. “Hey! Maybe we can cover the couch with one of those clear plastic tarps -- you know, like Joey’s mom has?”

Lance must look as mutinous as he feels.

“Or not,” Chris backtracks, laughing. “Or not.”

Their joined hands are lying between them on the countertop, next to Chris’s untouched mug of tea, clasped tightly. Lance doesn’t know how that happened, who reached out first, or how, or when, but it’s nice.

He takes a moment to admire their wedding rings, plain yellow bands that they purchased in a blind panic the morning of the ceremony, when they’d realized each of them had thought buying the rings had been the _other_ one’s job. They paid thirty bucks for both, from a guy on Sixth Avenue with a van full of counterfeit Chanel bags. Lance was sure he’d end up with a green-stained finger, maybe even lose the whole hand, but so far, that hasn’t happened.

Lance’s wedding band is easily the cheapest thing in his wardrobe. It’s also the thing he loves best.

He could say that out loud. He probably _should_ say that out loud. But it’d sound so cheesy. And the two of them, they try to avoid the cheesy. 

“Welp,” Chris says. “Guess I’ll go put on some pants before I get started on dinner. That is, if I can still remember where I keep them.”

Chris stands and turns to leave, but Lance grabs the edge of an afghan and uses it to reel him back in. He rests his cheek on Chris’s bare chest and looks up at him, all affection and nothing else. “What’s your rush?” he asks, voice low.

This time, Chris’s smile is pure sunshine.

The next morning, Lance wakes up feeling light, airy, and well-fucked. Chris isn’t in bed next to him. It’s Saturday; he must’ve decided to let Lance sleep in.

Lance doesn’t put on a thing before he leaves the bedroom. Not even a bathrobe. _Fuck it,_ he thinks to himself. _It’s a new world order._ He hums as he fails to make the bed and whistles as he pads away without re-fluffing the pillows.

He grins when he sees Chris sitting at the kitchen table. Chris is fully dressed. Having coffee.

With JC.

Lance makes a noise like a dying seal and grabs the first thing within reach. It turns out to be an umbrella, which he opens and holds at crotch level.

Chris gasps, a scandalized Southern belle with a goatee and an eyebrow piercing. “Lance! I can’t believe you! Our good pal JC stops by to share a beautiful Nescafe friendship moment and here you are, parading your junk in front of him? Throwing yourself a junk parade? Think of the children!” 

And he reaches over and claps his hand over JC’s eyes.

“Um,” says JC from behind Chris’s hand. “It’s totally okay. And also -- definitely not a child over here, Chris. You know I’m older than Lance, right?”

“Not in perv years,” Chris says, darkly. “Really, Lance. So uncouth.”

“I…” Lance says. There’s something wrong with the umbrella. It’s kinda...jiggling? Oh, no, wait, that’s just his hand shaking.. “I mean...I…I...”

“And that’s another thing! Opening an umbrella indoors, Lance? Bringing the bad juju down on all our heads, just because you can’t be bothered to cover up your dick? For shame!”

“Uh,” JC interjects, raising his hand like a hesitant 4th grader who’s not sure he knows the right answer. “I’m just -- gonna go now.” He stands up, gathers his coat. “But seriously, Lance. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.” He winks, then gives Lance the weirdest up-and-down once over he’s ever received. “Like, really. Nothing.”

Then he’s gone and Lance doesn’t even close the umbrella, just tosses it to the side, where it bounces off his burl-walnut coffee table. “You!” he says, pointing at the spot right between Chris’s eyes, rudeness be damned. His voice is low and thunderous. “I’m going to kill you!”

Chris drops the prim-and-proper act in an instant. It’s like a master class in acting, the way his shoulders roll back and the lazy, self-satisfied smile spreads across his face. “No, you’re not,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “You can’t.‘Cos then you wouldn’t have anyone to nail you raw on that spotless white couch of yours.”

“ _What?_ You’re dreaming if you think that’s gonna happen, bucko. You didn’t stand a chance ten minutes ago, and now? After that performance? Nuh-uh. Never.”

“Aw, c’mon, Lance.” Chris’s words wouldn’t be so annoying if he’d just wipe that fucking smirk off his face. (Yes, they would.) “Not even over plastic? I just ordered ten yards of water resistant tarp and Amazon’s delivering it in exactly twenty three hours!”

Lance realizes he’s still pointing. He drops his hand, but not the glower. “No. _No._ I’m gonna need a lot longer than twenty three hours to forget about this.” 

“Sure, you will.”

“I mean it, Chris.”

“I hear you.”

“I’m serious!”

But even as he says it, something happens. All the fight goes out of him, just whooshes right on out, and suddenly he’s walking across the room. Moving toward Chris like he’s in a trance. He’s sitting on Chris’s lap now, still pouting, but curling up and tucking his legs up and underneath just the same. How did that happen? He never decided to do that.

He tucks his chin into Chris’s neck, so he can’t see the smirk anymore. There, that’s better. Mad, he’s supposed to be mad, but Chris’s lap is sturdy and soft and tarps are such a great invention. So convenient.

And it doesn’t really matter that JC’s seen his junk. It’s not that big a deal. JC’s cool. He won’t tell anyone about the umbrella. Or the free show. 

“Twenty four hours?” Chris slides an arm around Lance’s back, plants his hand at the base of his spine. It’s still warm from the coffee cup. “Twenty five?”

“Well...maybe twenty five.” Lance gives in, feeling himself go limp, weightless. “Possibly.”

“Good,” says Chris, dipping down for a kiss. “It’s a date.”


End file.
